I've been reading more Harlan Ellison, and the collection "Paingod and Other Delusions" has really struck me in awe. I have never read something that is so honest and utterly true. There have been several times where I have just felt emotion come forth in my chest, because I feel as if someone out there I have finally connected with.

Some of my favourite phrases in the book:

- One night some years ago, maybe five or six, I woke up in the darkness and saw words burning bright-red on the ceiling of my bedroom. ARE YOU AWARE OF HOW MUCH PAIN THERE IS IN THE WORLD?

- I am a selfish sonofabitch who contributes to "good causes" because I feel shitty if I don't.

- There's no absence of love in the world, only worthy places to put it.

- I know that pain is the most important thing in the universes. Greater than survival, greater than love, greater than even the beauty it brings about. For without pain there can be no pleasure. Without sadness there can be no happiness. Without misery there can be no beauty.

- But if there were no opposite to beauty, if there was no opposite to pleasure, it would all turn to dust, to waste.

- The moment of truth stood high above him, resplendent in marble and truth, but there would be no other moments.

I'm off to write (not type) a letter to Harlan because this has been one of the few times I've been truly thankful for a book. If you have any books that have shook you to the that unnameable part of yourself, let me know to pass around that feeling. It surely is a unique one.